Personality Plus for Couples

Florence Littauer

Description

The best-selling author of Personality Plus and Personality Plus for Parents now shows couples how to apply the personality principles that have made Florence so popular. Husbands and wives will understand why they act the way they do and how they can best respond to each other.Personality Plus for Couples gives husbands and wives:* a personality profile test to identify their personality types* the trademark characteristics of each personality type* ways to resolve hot conflicts that arise between spouses* what to expect if you marry someone of the same type, someone of the opposite type, or someone with a compatible personality type Littauer offers pages of stories and practical insight about how to approach each personality differently. When husbands and wives care enough to understand what makes the other tick, they can celebrate each other's individuality and build a marriage that lasts.

Sujets

• Dating

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585581320
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 2001 by Florence Littauer
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-5855-8132-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.© Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
A special thanks to Tammy Bennett and Rose Sweet for their creative stimulation and words of encouragement. F LORENCE L ITTAUER
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction: Once upon a Time . . .
Part 1 Setting the Stage: An Overview of the Personalities
1 A Cast of Characters: What Are the Personalities?
2 The Rhythm of a Moral Marriage: Do Personalities Make a Difference?
3 When Cymbals Crash: Hot Conflicts in Marriage
Part 2 Getting in Tune: Living with the Personalities
4 The Song of the Sanguine: Sunshine, Lollipops, and Roses
5 The Melody of the Melancholy: Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
6 The Clang of the Choleric: Seventy-six Trombones Take Charge
7 The Fret of the Phlegmatic: Wake Me When It’s Over
Part 3 Making Music Together: Dynamics of the Personalities
8 Different Scales, Scripts, and Scenes: When You Marry Your Opposite
9 In the Same Key: When You’re Married to the Same Personality
10 Creating Your Own Unique Song: A Few Notes for All Couples

Conclusion: . . . And They Lived Happily Ever After
Appendix A: A Timeline of Personality Discoveries
Appendix B: An Overview of the Personalities
Other Books by Author
Notes
INTRODUCTION
Once upon a Time . . .
Back in the good old days when I was young, all fiction had the same plot: The beautiful princess is the catch of the town, all men pursue her, some are villains, the handsome prince slays the undeserving, the princess leaps into his arms in gratitude, and they fall in love, get married, and . . .
When I run through this litany at conferences I can always count on the crowd to finish this fairy-tale plotline for me. We all know the prince and princess always go on to live “happily ever after,” right?
But did you ever notice that those fairy tales all end with the wedding? They don’t even review the honeymoon and surely don’t touch on the trauma of discovering that this person is nothing like you and disagrees with your opinion on things as basic as buttering toast.
For Fred and me it was the grapes. We were sitting on the patio of a pink cottage in Bermuda when the waiter brought us a platter of fruit. I was excited with the service and began to talk to the grapes. (I frequently talk to inanimate objects when no one else seems to be listening.)
“What a cute little fellow you are,” I said to a grape. “I think I’ll eat you first.”
As I was chatting sociably with the fruit, Fred turned towards me and asked, “Do you like grapes?”
I thought that was an unnecessary question since I was happily eating the grapes. But submissive bride that I was, I smiled and answered, “Yes, I like grapes.”
“Then I assume you’d like to know how to eat them properly,” he responded.
I had no idea there was a proper way to eat grapes, but being polite, I asked, “How do you eat grapes properly?” I had already learned that in Fred’s family everything had to be done politely and properly.
“First you take out your nail clippers,” Fred instructed.
I didn’t have nail clippers, but Fred did. Fred has enough equipment in his pockets to outlast the cast of Survivor. He has a minimum of nine pens with him, even on vacation: red, blue, and black, with fine tip, medium tip, and felt tip. And not only does Fred have his pens, his nail clippers, his Swiss army knife, and his keys, but they are always in the same pocket so he can produce them quickly with no fumbling.
“Then you clip a small cluster of grapes from the larger bunch,” Fred explained as he took out his nail clippers, selected a little cluster of grapes, and snipped them off at the main stem.
“Do they taste better that way?” I asked, confused by why this procedure was so important.
Fred looked at me with pity. “It has nothing to do with the taste. It’s to preserve the shape of the bunch.”
Now I didn’t know who cared about how the bunch looked, so I turned around to see if there were any grape judges hidden in the bushes. Seeing none, I asked, “What difference does it make?” I had not yet learned one does not question Fred’s statements without expecting to receive a simplistic lesson appropriate for a first grader.
“When you eat grapes the way you are doing,” Fred said with an air of superiority, “you will notice that there are little ugly brown stems sticking up all over the bunch.”
I looked. Sure enough, there were ugly brown stems sticking up. But they didn’t bother me, so I still didn’t understand the problem. I hadn’t yet learned that my opinion didn’t matter if the situation bothered him.
This grape-eating situation was just the first of many that revealed my new husband’s penchant for attention to every detail.
When we’d been married only two weeks, we went to a movie one night. On the way home I had an idea. “Could we stop and get an ice cream cone?” I suggested.
Without hesitation, Fred said no.
Now I wasn’t used to this. “What do you mean ‘no’?” I asked.
“I mean, no you can’t have an ice cream cone.” Fred’s answer was simple enough, but it didn’t really answer my question, so he continued. “You will have to learn that every morning I make out my schedule for the day. From here on, if you wish to have ice cream at 11:00 at night, you tell me at 7:00 in the morning when I make out my schedule.”
“But I didn’t know at 7:00 this morning that I would want ice cream at 11:00 tonight,” I protested. Unfortunately for me, my argument wasn’t very persuasive for Fred. I didn’t get my ice cream.
I often share these stories at conferences where I speak. And it’s at about this point that Fred bursts through the audience, grabs the mike, and remarks, “I bet you think she’s a lot of fun to live with!”
Some members of the audience are afraid he’s mad at me, some laugh, and a few applaud as if to say, “Yes, she is fun to live with.” (I always encourage that last group and get everyone clapping with me.) While all of this is happening, Fred looks disturbed and begins to tell tales about me.
“I want you ladies to know that after I married Florence there were many significant changes in my life.” Fred states this with an air of perfection and disappointment. “Before I got married my toothpaste tube was always neat and tidy, but after we got married it turned ugly. I began to watch Florence to see what in the world she was doing with the toothpaste.”
Fred watched me a lot. And he not only watched, but he felt led to tell me how not to make that mistake again.
“Of course, she’s talking all the time and paying no attention to what she’s doing,” Fred continues with his description of my appalling toothpaste habits. “She picks up the toothpaste and squeezes it in the middle,” he groans, seeking sympathy from his fellow neatniks in the crowd. “It pours out of the top and gets the whole tube all sticky. Then she takes her brush and smears it across the top. Sometimes she puts the cap on and sometimes she doesn’t. It’s a mess either way.”
At this point the neatniks like Fred are feeling sick, and the ones like me are sympathetic and hoping Fred doesn’t yell at me.
“But I’ve solved the problem,” he says brightly as he looks toward the audience for the answer. “Two tubes” they call out, proud of their quick response.
“That’s right,” Fred says with a smile. “Two tubes. She has her own tube, and she can squeeze it whatever way she wants. But when it gets real messy she hands it to me and says, ‘Here, Fred, will you straighten this out please?’”
Fred gives a satisfied smile. “So I lay it down on the counter and smooth it out. She gets another month out of it, and we’ve saved money.”
As he smirks triumphantly, I jump in. “The reason I give him the toothpaste ”
Before I can finish he moves in front of me and comments, “People with Florence’s kind of personality tend to interrupt a lot.”
I counter with, “Those of you like me know that we don’t really see it as interrupting. It’s just that what we’ve got to say is more interesting than what the other person is saying.” The women in the audience laugh in agreement.
After the laughter dies down a bit, I repeat my earlier statement. “The reason I give the tube to Fred is not because I care how it looks. I don’t. But Fred goes through the trash. If he can find anything with any shred of redemptive value, he will take it out, wash it up, and show me how to use it again.”
By this time everyone in the audience has related to one of us and has taken sides according to their own personality.
How about you? Are you the one who wants to have fun, be spontaneous, and ignore schedules? Or do you feel that without a tight schedule, life would be no fun?
Whatever your personality, you will find it in the real-life examples in this book. You women will find yourselves and see why your husband is so difficult to live with. You men will relate quickly to your strengths and wonder why you married the one woman in the world who doesn’t see your virtues.
By the time you have finished reading, you will look at each other differently and realize what God had in mind when he brought you together to live “happily ever after.”

A CAST OF CHARACTERS
What Are the Personalities?